Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

As Caesar passed by the first pair of men in black, his gaze lingered on the badge.

The underworld war has been lost, yet the Ghost Clan still retains such a massive force.

These young people were not thugs temporarily recruited from the street; their posture, their eyes, and the distance they maintained when bowing all exuded discipline.

It is clear that the Snake Clan completely misjudged the organizational structure of the Demon Clan. What was defeated were only the gangs that were attached to the periphery of the Demon Clan, those low-level members who fought and killed in the streets and fought for territory in bars, like the soft tentacles of an octopus reaching into the sea to catch its prey.

The true core of the Demon Clan, the most elite "demons," had already infiltrated Tokyo long before the war broke out, seeping into the city's most hidden veins, quietly lying dormant, awaiting orders.

These young ghosts were not ferocious or malevolent; they were respectful, silent, and polite, just like the solemn retinue of a daimyo from the Warring States period.

At the end of the corridor stood a black wooden door. The entire door was made from a single piece of ebony, its grain so fine it resembled flowing water, running from the lintel to the threshold. On each of the pillars flanking the door frame was carved a raven with outstretched wings.

A young woman in her early twenties, dressed in a black kimono, knelt outside the door. She had delicate and striking features, and her long hair was tied up with a silver hairpin. The kimono's obi (sash) was tied in an extremely intricate knot. Her hands rested flat on her knees, as if she had been kneeling for a long time, but there was not a trace of weariness or impatience in her posture.

Hearing footsteps, she slightly raised her head, then placed her hands on the ground, her forehead gently touching the back of her hands.

She straightened up and pulled open the black wooden door.

The rich scent of sandalwood wafted out from under the door.

She knelt down and prostrated herself, waiting for Caesar and Chu Zihang to cross the threshold one after the other before leaning out and silently closing the sliding door from the outside.

Behind the door is a bright and spacious Japanese-style house.

The room is about twenty tatami mats in size, with newly replaced rush tatami mats on the floor, and the air is filled with the fresh scent of grass and the deep, dark aroma of sandalwood.

Facing the door is a floor-to-ceiling glass window, overlooking the back of the Kabukiza Theatre, where the lights of the Ginza skyscrapers flicker silently in the night.

The cheers and applause from the audience, having traveled through layers of walls, were reduced to a faint, distant, tidal low echo, like a sound from another world.

The room was quiet and empty, with almost no superfluous furnishings. In the center of the room stood a black lacquered dressing table with an oval bronze mirror on it. The mirror frame was carved with intricate floral and bird patterns and was polished to a shine.

On either side of the bronze mirror, a paper lamp was lit, its flame burning quietly, occasionally emitting a very faint crackling sound.

Kazama Ruri, wearing a scarlet robe, was removing her makeup in front of the mirror.

The robe was made of silk, and under the light of the paper lantern, it shone with a deep, dark red hue, like congealed blood that had been redistributed and dyed. The hem of the robe spread out on the tatami mat, and the edge was embroidered with an extremely fine gold thread pattern of auspicious clouds, each cloud no bigger than a fingernail.

His long hair was still in the same loose state as during the performance, cascading down from his shoulders to his waist.

He held a white makeup remover pad in his left hand and a small celadon bottle in his right, carefully wiping away the remaining makeup from his face in front of the bronze mirror.

The makeup on the left side of his face had been completely removed, revealing the boy's originally fair skin. His eyebrows had returned to a faint bluish-black, and his lips, now devoid of color, appeared soft and delicate. The right side of his face, however, still bore the remnants of Izanami's makeup. His skin was as pale as paper, and the gruesome crimson mark at the corner of his eye still slanted upwards into his temples. Only half of the vermilion on his lips had been wiped away, leaving a blurry red mark spreading diagonally upwards from the corner of his mouth.

The face in the mirror was somewhere between a fair-skinned young man and a pale, beautiful woman. The left half was a handsome man, and the right half was a tragically beautiful female ghost. Two completely opposite beauties were forcibly sewn together by an invisible central line, twisted into a bewitching and captivating twist.

"Sakura-kun isn't here?" Kazama Ruri asked in front of the mirror without turning her head.

His voice was completely different from when he performed; it was no longer a plaintive and desolate female voice, nor a powerful and high-pitched male voice, but rather it had returned to his original timbre, clear and neutral, hovering between the two. But no matter which vocal tone he used, he didn't need any transition when switching between them.

“He seems to be having a lot of romantic luck lately, so he doesn’t have time to come and see traditional Japanese art.” Caesar sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, his posture as casual as if he were in his own living room. The hem of his black haori was casually spread out beside him, and the white paper folding fan returned to his fingers, slowly turning in circles.

"Please sit for a moment, and I'll chat with you two after I've removed my makeup," said Kazama Ruri, her fingers continuing to gently trace circles on her cheeks.

Caesar stared intently at the half-disfigured face in the mirror, scrutinizing it closely. He wasn't examining a person, but piecing together an answer.

After a few moments of silence.

"Are you really Genjiro's younger brother?"

Kazama Ruri's fingers paused for a moment in front of the mirror. He didn't answer immediately, but instead placed the makeup remover pads on the dressing table, reached behind his head, and gathered his long hair. He casually tousled his hair with his fingers, sweeping away all the stray hairs from his forehead to reveal his entire face. The pale-faced boy on the left and the pale-faced beauty on the right both turned towards Caesar.

The paper lamps on both sides of the bronze mirror shone on his face. Looking at him from the direction of the light, the bone structure of his face suddenly became clear and sharp. The height of his cheekbones, the direction of his nose, and the angle of his jaw were all outlined with distinct lines under the light.

"Looking at you like this, do you resemble your brother?" He tilted his head slightly, a very faint smile appearing on his lips.

Caesar remained silent.

From the first time I bumped into Kazama Ruri in Takamagahara to now, sitting across from him in this quiet Japanese-style house, there have been too many layers of filters in between.

The glamorous appearance of the cowherd, the mournful lament of the female ghost, and the ferocity of the eight-headed serpent—these filters are layered upon layered on this man, obscuring his true face.

But when Kazama Ruri pulled her hair back, revealing her entire face without any obstruction, Caesar finally saw her clearly.

“More like siblings,” he said.

Chapter 782 It would be better if it were a girl

“My brother said the same thing when I was little, saying he wished I were a girl,” Kazama Ruri smiled.

As he said this, the corner of the pale-faced boy's mouth on the left side of the mirror slightly lifted.

He was referring to "older brother," not "Genjiro," not "patriarch," and certainly not "that high and mighty Amaterasu."

He was his older brother, the brother who would pat his head when they were little and say he wished he were a girl, the brother who would chase each other barefoot in the corridor of the old house, the brother who hadn't yet become the head of the Japanese yakuza and hadn't yet learned to hide his face behind the Iron Curtain.

A faint light flashed in Kazama Ruri's eyes, like a distant star reflected on a lake on a winter night, and then disappeared.

"How should we locate you?" Chu Zihang asked. His posture had hardly changed since he entered the room; his back was straight, his hands were flat on his knees, and the hem of his black haori was carefully drawn into two parallel straight lines.

"Genjiro's younger brother? The leader of the Oni Clan? A genius Kabuki actor? Or Japan's number one male host?"

Chu Zihang laid out the four identities on the table like four playing cards, waiting for Kazama Ruri to flip one over.

"These are all me," Kazama Ruri said, biting a comb as she tied her hair, her voice slightly muffled.

He gathered his long hair into a high ponytail with his fingers, then took a horn comb and combed it from root to tip with practiced ease. After combing, he tied the ponytail tightly with a dark purple ribbon, then tossed it over his shoulder, letting it hang down on the lapel of his scarlet robe.

When facing Caesar and Chu Zihang, Kazama Ruri was unusually relaxed, as if they were old friends who had known each other for a long time and there was nothing she had to avoid.

He put the comb back on the dressing table, turned around, and sat on the tatami with his legs crossed, the hem of his scarlet robe spreading out behind him like a fan.

"But my identity within the Ghost Clan is what you two are most concerned about, isn't it? The high-ranking officers of the Ghost Clan all use shogi pieces as code names. My code name is 'Dragon King,' the second-in-command after 'King General.'"

Dragon King.

Caesar snapped his fan shut and tapped it lightly in his palm. This wasn't the first time he'd heard that name.

Shogi is a unique board game in Japan. Like chess, it has a king, rook, knight, and pawn. However, it has an additional rule that no other board game has: after capturing an opponent's piece, it can be put back on the board to serve as your own piece.

A captured piece doesn't truly die; it simply switches sides and starts fighting again.

This metaphor is all too fitting when applied to the Ghosts.

“You have a wide range of interests,” Caesar said.

A formidable figure on the shogi board, second only to the king, she is also a genius female kabuki performer whose tickets are hard to come by, and Kazama Ruri, a hostess in Takamagahara who can make female customers spend a fortune.

This can no longer be dismissed as a "slash youth"; it is clearly a person who has lived three completely unrelated lifetimes.

“Kabuki is the kind of thing that I’m addicted to,” Kazama Ruri said, reaching for the ebony pipe next to her dressing table and filling the bowl with golden raw tobacco.

"Being a cowherd is another way of life for me. I like to bump into strangers, whose lives have never intersected, yet we tell each other our stories, and then part ways again. It's like what Tagore said, the meeting of a bird and a fish, one in the sky, one in the water, belonging to completely different worlds, but in a very brief moment, they collide on the shimmering water, exchange the scenery reflected in each other's eyes, and then each return to their own sky and deep sea. No one owes anyone anything, and no one can forget anyone."

As Kazama Ruri uttered the words "birds and fish," the tobacco bowl was just filled with tobacco.

He picked up a paper wick, lit it over the flame of the paper lantern, then brought the burning wick close to the bowl and took a gentle puff. The tobacco flickered a dark red light in the bowl for a moment, and white smoke slowly spilled from his lips, spreading like a thin veil in the glow of the paper lantern.

"The Chinese say that a son of a wealthy family would not sit under a dangerous roof. It would be a waste of your talent to become a gigolo with your status," Caesar said in Chinese. Surprisingly, Kazama Ruri understood and waved her hand with a smile.

“Isn’t the heir chosen by the Gattuso family also a rising star host in Kabukicho?” Kazama Ruri blinked.

He was referring to Basara King, the name Caesar used for a male escort in Takamagahara.

“Our male escort industry is truly full of talented people.”

Caesar didn't speak, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Kazama Ruri took another drag of his cigarette, this time holding the smoke in his mouth for a few seconds before slowly exhaling through his nose. His expression softened, and the sharpness of the "Dragon King" gradually faded.

“I’m someone who gets lonely too easily. Whenever I feel so lonely that I can’t bear it anymore, I’ll find a host club and sit down, and pick the girl with the loneliest look in her eyes that night. Their eyes in the crowd are like those of deer, both beautiful and wary. They clearly crave to be approached, yet instinctively fear being approached. I’ll suddenly sit down next to them and ask if they would like to buy me a drink.”

Both Caesar and Chu Zihang are laughing, but combined they can probably only produce three to five different kinds of laughter. Caesar's laughter can be bold, sarcastic, or confident; Chu Zihang's laughter can probably only be one kind, and you have to look closely to find it.

But Kazama Ruri can laugh in a thousand different ways.

At this moment, his eyes sparkled, and the curve of his lips hovered perfectly between playfulness and tenderness. The light shone on his face, which had just had half of its makeup removed, making him radiant.

The scene he described vividly appeared in Caesar's mind: a long-haired man in a black suit sitting quietly next to a girl with deer-like eyes in a noisy nightclub, asking her in a voice slightly gentler than an ordinary person if she would like to buy him a drink.

The woman would probably look at the man with a sense of flattery, thinking to herself, "How can such a beautiful person be lonely?"

"If I could choose, I'd rather be a Kabuki actress or a male escort," Kazama Ruri said, placing her pipe on the dressing table, crossing her hands on her knees, and looking up at Caesar and Chu Zihang.

There was no self-pity or lament in his tone when he said this; he was simply stating a fact that he had already come to terms with.

It's like someone saying, "If I could choose, I'd like to be a carpenter or a gardener," but you know he's destined to be neither, because from the moment he was born, he's been locked onto a fixed chessboard.

“But I can’t. I’m the wrong person, born into the wrong family, and have the wrong identity.”

Ruri Kazama paused for a moment. The flame of the paper lantern suddenly trembled, and the shadows in the room flickered.

"To say that I am a mistake in myself is probably not a mistake."

"Are you a ghost?" Chu Zihang asked.

Ruri Kazama nodded. The movement was so light that her chin drooped almost imperceptibly before lifting again.

“That’s right. Although we’re brothers, the elder brother is the emperor, while I am a ghost. Not only am I not as noble as him, but I’m the most lowly kind.” His voice was steady, but when he said the words “most lowly,” there was an almost inaudible pause between the syllables, like a slight clenching of teeth.

“If we hadn’t met under these special circumstances, you would probably have found a way to capture me and deal with me according to the Secret Party’s ‘Abraham’s Bloodline Contract,’ imprisoning me on some deserted island until my own bloodline burns me to ashes. According to that contract, I am the kind of dangerous person who should be isolated from human society from birth.”

The room suddenly became very quiet. The distant voices outside the window continued, but behind the ebony door, it was as if some of the air had been sucked away.

"Then why did you come to us? Even if the academy has a grudge against the Snake Clan, it won't turn around and cooperate with the Fierce Ghost Clan just because of that," Chu Zihang said.

Ruri Kazama did not directly respond to that statement.

He turned his gaze back to Caesar, a smile playing on his lips that was both gentle and playful, and changed the subject.

Did you enjoy my performance tonight?

Chu Zihang remained silent.

He stared at Kazama Ruri's face for several seconds before speaking: "There is a floor in Genji Heavy Industries that preserves many ancient murals. Your 'New Kojiki' was derived from those murals. You have seen those murals."

"Of course. I am the second son of the Minamoto family, one of the few descendants of the three inner families. Before I was judged to be a demon, I was fortunate enough to enter that floor, see those murals with my own eyes, and hear the priest's explanation."

Kazama Ruri picked up the slender ebony pipe inlaid with silver that was on the dressing table, opened the tobacco box, and refilled the pipe with some golden raw tobacco.

His hands were steady, and he filled the tobacco evenly and smoothly. “You have only seen the paintings, but no one has explained them to you. At most, you only have a superficial understanding. The first great gift I want to give you is my interpretation of those murals.”

He gently pressed down on the tobacco in the pipe with his fingers, then looked up at Caesar and Chu Zihang.

"Do you remember that large painting that used a lot of gold? The skull and the human form the shape of a double fish, and the skull is handing a piece of bone to the human."